Brandon Baptist Tabernacle

Jeremy Boggs:                   Hello, and thank you for tuning in to another episode of Cherishing Scripture Podcast. I'm your host today, Jeremy Boggs and I'm joined with our pastor here at Brandon Baptist Tabernacle, Pastor Brad Bailey and then behind the sound booth there we have our youth director, Zack Taylor, how you guys doing today?

Zach Taylor:                       Doing well.

Pastor Bailey:                    Terrific.

Zach Taylor:                       Jeremy told me that I have a face for radio.

Jeremy Boggs:                   He's hides for some reason.

Pastor Bailey:                    There's a reason we keep saying behind the camera here. (laughs)

Zach Taylor:                       You're welcome.

                    (Group laughing)

Pastor Bailey:                    There's a reason. His good voice, great voice. Let’s leave it at that.

                      (Group Laughing)

Zach Taylor:                       Hey I had a lot of girls told me I had a great personality growing up. So, I never understood what that meant.

Pastor Bailey:                    (laughs)

Jeremy Boggs:                   Let's ask Jackie to see what she says(laughs). But it's great to be back in the studio again today. We're back in God's word again, as always, like we've said this before, we don't ever do this to get known or to make our names known. But we do it because we love God's word.

Pastor Bailey:                    Amen.

Jeremy Boggs:                   The best way to change society by cherishing scripture is to study God's Word to spread the truth.

Pastor Bailey:                    Give you the book.

Jeremy Boggs:                   Yes, Give you the book. 

Pastor Bailey:                    That’s absolutely right.

Zach Taylor:                       You guys may have already seen this in our previous episode, but just so y'all know we are trying out some video and different stuff like this, so that y'all can actually see the recording. So, if it cuts out again, that's just because we're still working through the technology. Technology never seems to want to agree with you. But we're just in case.

Jeremy Boggs:                   We're trying to advance.

Pastor Bailey:                    We're trying we actually started I don’t know, how long? How old is this podcast?

Jeremy Boggs:                   It’s about two years old now.

Pastor Bailey:                    We started trying to do video, but that was the early days when we didn't have two nickels to rub together. Now we have two quarters to rub together. (laughs)

Jeremy Boggs:                   I'd say we're getting better at it. I mean, before we didn't know what to do. And we tried the scripting thing and tried to script it out. And it sounded so weird. And now we just bounce off of each other.

Pastor Bailey:                    We get these fancy booms. Now the nice table the background, the What do you call these, these little spit guard and what do we call it? So, we're set man.

Zach Taylor:                       Sound panels.

Pastor Bailey:                    Yeah, sound panels.

Zach Taylor:                       Country come to town.

Pastor Bailey:                    Yeah, we just need a woman to tell us what to do. And we're set man. (laughs)

Jeremy Boggs:                   You know, today (laughs) She's going to kill me for telling you this. But, man, we were out for Kody's birthday and my dad invited Matt and Mara with us. Mara goes, can I come and be on the podcast? I was like, I don't know. We don't have women on our podcast is a man's podcast.

                     (Group laughs)

Jeremy Boggs:                   So, she's serious. She thinks we need to get a woman on here. I don't know. 

Pastor Bailey:                    Wow, Jesus is coming soon.

Jeremy Boggs:                   (laughs) Yea quicker than you know. So, we're back in Galatians. If you've missed last week's episode, you should definitely go back and just review the whole entire book of Galatians. Because me studying these verses last night, they kind of I mean, they sum it up these two verses were about are these few next couple of verses is pretty big. So, we're going to start in verse 13 and make our way down through 18, and I think pastor is going to read it for us.

Pastor Bailey:                    Sure, yeah, and speaking of, you know, just sharing the Bible, and being biblical, and bold, and all of those kinds of things. Man, we had an incredible day, at our church, we were just chatting off the air about a lesson that was brought this morning, our school format has been really different. Because the COVID thing, we've tried to keep everybody in the main auditorium so they can spread out, you know, we have the primary and teen classes and so forth. But adult wise, the ones that we feel like maybe exceptionally vulnerable, we'll keep them in the main sanctuary so they can sort of spread out there and be safe, as safe as they feel like they need to be.

Zach Taylor:                       Right.

Pastor Bailey:                    And so, we've been using different teachers. Aston Brown this morning, man, I mean, just hit it out of the park talking about Christians in a secular culture.

Jeremy Boggs:                   Yeah.

Pastor Bailey:                    It was great.

Jeremy Boggs:                   Yup

Pastor Bailey:                    I mean, it was as good of a Sunday school lesson as I've heard anywhere, you know, and I mean, you go to churches, and only Sunday school is just a joke. You got to come to our church, man. And check these guys out. We have some of the best teachers teaching right now in that adult class they they're cycling through and different ones every week. So, it's been good.

Jeremy Boggs:                   To here are some of his experiences that he told us today. You know, we we've talked about it before off air, and we've heard you mentioned some of them, but even to hear another pastor go through some what some similar situations, it's just surprising.

Pastor Bailey:                    It's been pretty good. It's been really, really fun to watch. So, Galatians 5: 13 through 18 is where we're at today. And it's a really, really good one. For Brethren, you have been called into liberty. Only use not your liberty for an occasion to the flesh, but by love serve one another. For all the law is fulfilled in one word, even in this thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. But if you bite and devour one another, Take heed that you be not consumed one of another. This I say then walk in the Spirit and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh, for the flesh lusteth against the spirit and the Spirit against the flesh. And these are contrary the one to the other, so that you cannot do the things that you would do. But if you'd be led of the Spirit, you're not under the law. It's a great reading. It's a great portion. And I’m going to go on the record here and make this easy. I'm in full agreement with this passage of Scripture.

Jeremy Boggs:                   Yeah.

Pastor Bailey:                    There's a lot more that can be said. Right.

Zach Taylor:                       Yeah, and I think this kind of reiterates what we said, time and time again, pretty much every podcast, it seems like, we here are talking about Liberty, and not lawlessness, which I think is perfectly summarized in verse 13. He says, don’t use this liberty for an occasion to the flesh.

Pastor Bailey:                    Right.

Zach Taylor:                       Which I think is something that we've believed in, we believe that there's liberty, some people are trying to say that we have this newfound liberty. But really, it was a liberty that we've always had we just chose not to exercise.

Pastor Bailey:                    Or in some cases were not permitted you know, not permitted to exercise it so it's one of those things.

Jeremy Boggs:                   I can tell you I'm super excited to start talking about this at least verse 14 and 15 with you guys because one thing that just you know, we've been talking about law this, law this, law this and how we have Liberty but Paul literally says the law is fulfilled in one word.

Pastor Bailey:                    Right.

Jeremy Boggs:                   And that's love. That's it. Without love there is no Liberty.

Pastor Bailey:                    Right.

Jeremy Boggs:                   Without love there's no salvation.

Pastor Bailey:                    Yeah.

Jeremy Boggs:                   For God so loved the world that he gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believeth in Him shall not perish but have everlasting life.

Pastor Bailey:                    That’s absolutely right.

Jeremy Boggs:                   Romans five eight says the same thing, but God commendeth his love towards us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. So, Love is love, is it.

Pastor Bailey:                    Absolutely.

Zach Taylor:                       And I think that from honestly, you mentioned this verse. But I think from this section, towards the end, he really carries this thought because even today, I did in Sunday school, we've been talking about temptation. And I talked about helping a brother that's in temptation today in Sunday school, and that's what he talks about in sixth one is, if a man be overtaken in a fault, ye which are spiritual, restore such an one in the spirit of meekness, and it's, I think this whole towards the end, he really nails this point home, which is very awesome to me. I knew we mentioned, I think last week, we said, we talked about verse 13. In this week, we're going to start and 14, like I said before 13, we made a very clear, we believe that there is a clear state of law in the Bible. There are standards that the Bible has. But then there are those adiaphorous points as gray points where we are allowed to exercise liberty, but it says here, don't use that as an occasion to the flesh, but by love, serve one another. He continues that thought in verse 14, when he says, for all the law is fulfilled, and one word even this, thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. I thought that was pretty interesting. It's a pretty interesting statement to make there. But if you think about it, especially the second table, the 10 commandments, or the civil lawis definitely fulfilled in that phrase because even Jesus when he mentioned that he mentioned, thou shalt love the Lord thy God, with all thy heart. But then he mentions right after that, the second is like unto it, thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.

Jeremy Boggs:                   And we'll pastor said a couple weeks, couple Sundays ago, we were talking about covetousness.

Pastor Bailey:                    Say that word again. (laughs)

Jeremy Boggs:                   Hey look I had some more Cheerwine if y'all remember that from last episode.

Pastor Bailey:                    Cheerwine is a non-alcoholic beverage.

Jeremy Boggs:                   Anyways (laughs), so if you love your neighbor as yourself, you won't have any other gods before you.

Pastor Bailey:                    Right.

Jeremy Boggs:                   You won't have any graven images, you won't take Lord's name in vain, you will honor your parents and so the list goes on and on.

Pastor Bailey:                    Love the Lord your God.

Jeremy Boggs:                   So, it sums up right love is everything.

Zach Taylor:                       Yeah, if you love God, like you said, you're not going to have any other gods. Yeah, you're going to have any graven image, you're not going to take his name is vane and you're going to remember the Sabbath.

Pastor Bailey:                    Exactly.

Zach Taylor:                       And then if you love your neighbors yourself, you're going to Honor your father and your mother, you're not going to kill, you're not going to steal, you're not going to commit adultery. You're not going to bear false witness or lying; you're not going to covet.

Jeremy Boggs:                   Well, the law demands love. If the law demands love, and that shows that there was an absence of love so with this absence, that means that the law cannot be fulfilled.

Pastor Bailey:                    Right.

Jeremy Boggs:                   And I think that's what Paul saying here.

Zach Taylor:                       He follows that up in verse 15, he says, but if you bite and devour one another, take heed that you'd be not consumed one of another.

Pastor Bailey:                    Right.

Zach Taylor:                       Which is the opposite of love.

Pastor Bailey and Jeremy Boggs:              Yeah.

Pastor Bailey:                    It actually takes us back to you know, we were talking recently in our church in this newest series, about being a stumbling block to a weaker brother or a weaker sister, and the Apostle Paul made it clear that the concept of caring for a brother or sister is all wrapped up in loving that brother, and loving that sister. And the problem is, is that we are generalizing the word. We're generalizing that word love, and we're not really giving the specifics of what it means to love a brother, or to love a sister and that's where you're talking about Zach, you know, chapter six, verse number one where he begins talking about a brother, who is overtaken in a fault. That's where love actually puts on its work boots, because this brother made a mistake. This brother might have brought disrepute upon the church, he might have shamed the Word of God, he might have, you know, hurt his family name. So, what are we doing? We're going to discard him, or we're going to throw him away, are we going to lift that brother back up, considering ourselves less we also be tempted. So, Paul, he doesn't just say love, love, love, love, love in general terms, and he actually tells us, this is what love looks like. We all know what love sounds like, I love you, I love you, I love you. But what does love look like? And it it has to be the willingness to reach down and recover a brother of low degree or a brother who has stumbled or a brother who has fallen. Or in First Corinthians 14, a brother, who is a weaker brother, a younger brother in the faith. So, this love is this what I love about this, and I don't want to ramble on my part here, but verse 13, he opens up the second word is brethren. You know, I love Paul's use of the word brethren.

Jeremy Boggs:                   Yeah.

Pastor Bailey:                    He could have said, I'm the apostle, you're the parishioners. But he didn't do that. He calls him brother, because I put the word Adele FOSS in Greek. It puts us all on an even footing. And Paul is willing to put himself there. Again, that's a reflection of His love. Is he superior? Absolutely. Is he an apostle? Absolutely. But he says here, I'm still your brother and he's admonishing them here, as brothers not to let their liberty become an occasion to the flesh.

Zach Taylor:                       And he shows it in this epistle. I mean, he, he had to correct a brother in Christ and Peter.

Jeremy Boggs:                   Yeah.

Pastor Bailey:                    Exactly.

Zach Taylor:                       He had to correct Peter.

Jeremy Boggs:                   Even first John, you know, I think its chapter three. It says, my little children, let us not love in word, or in tongue; but in deed and in truth. So, Love is not just something you can like you were saying before, it's not something you just continue to say, say, say, say, you have to do it.

Pastor Bailey:                    We already know how it sounds we need to know because that's the thing that's made the church so mushy, is everybody wants to talk about how love sounds.

Jeremy Boggs:                   Yeah.

Pastor Bailey:                    You know, it sounds beautiful. It sounds appealing. It sounds inviting. And that's why the church has gotten so bloated and mushy, is because we know how love sounds, but we don't know how love looks. What about when those people come? What about when this family says Look, I made some mistakes with my kids and one of them turned out to be lesbian? What are you going to do with it, you got to love that person. You got to love that family. And that doesn’t mean, you know, discarding them, it means you have to as much as possible be alongside of them through that experience and through that straw. So that's the love issue. You know, I know that's not exactly everything that's in this passage but what a rich concept, you know, to show our love to those who are going and the kind of the context of the book. You know, he's referring here, of course, again, to the fact that the judaizers have been so loveless.

Jeremy Boggs:                   Yeah.

Pastor Bailey:                    They've been so heartless, unsympathetic.

Jeremy Boggs:                   They've Biting and devouring one another.

Pastor Bailey:                    Yeah, biting and devouring one another, you know Paul he’s had to be so firm in the first four chapters. It's really refreshing. Now we get to chapter number five and six, and we get to hear a tenderness from Paul. We haven't heard and I love one through four. I think one through four are what give us five and six because he has to have that harshness there so that he can love you later. You know, the lady who used to be the basketball coach of the University of Tennessee Volunteers. You know, they had that big winning streak at University of Tennessee. The women's football team. I remember one time I was reading an article that she wrote and she said, Look, you have to start tough and love later. She said, if you love now and try to get tough later, they won't take it. If you start tough and get softer later, they'll appreciate you and love you more. And that's kind of the model. I’m sure Paul didn’t read that article. That's the model that he seems to be using here to help us to understand about love.

Jeremy Boggs:                   Yeah, it makes you think about how brutal this situation actually must have been. If he's saying that they are going around and biting and devouring each other and then he says they're not consuming one another. So that means that they're, they're literally killing each other spiritually.

Zach Taylor:                       I think it's funny because literally this goes with what pastor was talking about this morning about the tongue. He's been going through Emperor sins, and now he's talking about the tongue. And you mentioned the harshness of words that are affiliated with the tongue.

Pastor Bailey:                    Yup, Backbiting, backstabbing, tail bearing all of those. Yeah, so very true. I think what Paul is, you know, I think he has in Galatians, one through four and portions of five as well. I think he's had to be forceful. He's had to really show his teeth, you know, and, and show him Hey, look, I can bite if I have to. But they apparently have received the warning. By the time we get to chapter number five, he wants to be tender. He wants to remind them that he loves them first of all, and that they are only going to overcome this narrow minded, bigoted, Judaism by loving one another, and bearing one another's burdens and so fulfilling the law of Christ. That's all chapter six. But in verse 15, he says, if you bite and devour one another, Take heed that you be not consumed one of another. You know, there is a certain amount of extinction that's going on right now among a lot of our ultra-right wing conservative friends because they have lived by the sword and now what? They're dying by the sword.

Jeremy Boggs:                   Yeah, it makes me you know, think about this. You know, we've seen about verse 15. He's pretty much saying that. They're, they're beasts. They're beasts that are going around, and in devouring each other and just tearing each other down and that's kind of what we're seeing a little bit with some of us exercising our liberty. We're talking about our liberty, or and even in the church, you know, it makes you like, Okay, you guys. Have you guys seen that movie? Beauty the Beast? I'm sure we all have. Right, we've all seen Beauty and the Beast?

Zach Taylor:                       I’m to holy to watch that movie. (laughs)

Pastor Bailey:                    Yeah, I don't watch TV. (laughs)

Jeremy Boggs:                   Well, okay, well, we'll give you a breakdown. I'm just kidding. (laughs) But the beast in that movie is one ugly dude. He has that terrible voice. He's got a terrible personality. He thought of himself as some big and mighty dude. He had control. But really, he was nothing. Really, he was a nobody.

Pastor Bailey:                    He was cursed.

Jeremy Boggs:                   He was cursed, right and then all of a sudden, this beauty shows up. And, and like I said, were kind of familiar with the story. But all he needed. All this beast needed was somebody to love him. He needed someone to show him love. And that's kind of like what we're seeing with these people who are attacking liberty or, or even in our church, we've got so many beasts out there. That ugly personalities, they have ugly attitudes about all this. But then there's that beauty in the church. And the beauty is not our physical appearance. But it's the beauty that the beauty of the love that God had when He sent His Son to die on the cross.

Pastor Bailey:                    Right.

Jeremy Boggs:                   To raise again on the third day and to save us. So, if we show that beauty that we show that love, we love our neighbors as ourselves, sometimes you'll see a change in that beast.

Pastor Bailey:                    Absolutely. I would just toss that in really quickly too. And just say, not only did he need someone to love him, but he needed someone to love.

Jeremy Boggs:                   Yeah.

Pastor Bailey:                    So yeah, you know, I think that that is that is reciprocated. But in that those types of relationships, you know, ministry relationships, and so it's there has to be a mutual love for it to really be as wonderful as it should be.

Jeremy Boggs:                   Right. The problem is, is only three in this room? Or maybe there's a few more that are showing that beauty other than that everybody else is a beast. It's trying to devour each other.

Zach Taylor:                       I think this part I kind of talked about it with my young people today. I think the one thing I messed up and it was by I kind of saw it and it was, it was a habit that I learned from watching other people. It's so easy to come down hard on someone and almost feel good about it. Like Yeah, I'm correcting this problem in them. And even in my short time in the ministry, I've realized that that supercritical condescending spirit coming down and just dropping the axe on someone, teaching them a lesson and giving them a piece of your mind, whatever. You know, whatever analogy whatever you want to use, I realize it doesn't work. I've realized it has pushed far more people away. This isn't me saying that you shouldn't correct people. I completely believe in correcting people. But I think when love is lost out of the correction, then it just becomes a brutal nature.

Pastor Bailey:                    Yeah, it's just heartless correction.

Zach Taylor:                       And I was telling my young people you know; I look at the wall that we have. We have a tradition that I started here that whenever a kid joins our youth group, they paint a picture with their favorite verse on it, and they can design it however they want. And we have 17 pictures up there, and of those 17 and that that includes my wife and I have those 17 we only have seven people that are in church, two of them did move to the Carolinas, so we understand why they're not here of a 17. So, 15 and out of those 15, only seven of them are in charge regularly.

Pastor Bailey:                    It's interesting that you would come to that conclusion, you know, just talking through this podcast experience and stuff is interesting, you would come to that conclusion that, you know, love in the correction side of it, and this and that. And I know we're almost out of time, we've got 60 seconds here. But the next verse, this I say, then, walk in the Spirit, and he shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh. You know, this has to be spiritually motivated. This can't be an external compulsion to do the right thing. It can't be pastor driven, that can assist it. It can't be youth camp driven. It can't be Christian school standard driven; it has to be an internal work of the Spirit in the in the life and heart of a young person in your ministry, Zach, or my pastoral ministry here in the church and Jeremy, whatever you're involved into, it has to be spiritually led, or the results are not going to be permanent. That's just the hard cold facts of what we're dealing with the results are not going to be permanent if we impose that on them from an external standpoint.

Zach Taylor:                       I'm not going to give too much of it. But I've had a couple of kids, my wife and I always, there seems to always be a kid that just needs a little extra attention, and work. I've realized, with a couple that we've worked with that harsh, brutal nature just didn't work. Most of them are not in church and some of them are even further away from God than when they were before we got here, which is, you know, it's bad. That's talking about myself. I know that that's something I've had to correct this most recent one, I have a young man in our youth group that has a troubled past and I have constantly I've made it a point with him, just to let them know that I love them and when he says something wrong, I correct him. I don't I don't let him slide with that stuff. I'm very upfront with them. But I always make sure that I end the conversation, letting them know that I love them and it's definitely just in the short time that it's been working. It's been making a difference. He's starting to realize some of his problems. He's starting to talk about them, and it's good trying to get them corrected. like I said, I think especially it's dangerous for a pastor, and you could probably relate to this. It's dangerous, because when you get behind that pulpit, it's a one-way conversation.

Pastor Bailey:                    It is.

Zach Taylor:                       You can really drop the axe on anyone.

Pastor Bailey:                    It's very dangerous. That's why I love the way this paragraph concludes. You know, he says, what is it here you have verse 18. But if you be led by the Spirit, you're not under the law. So, what do you want? Do you want spirit or you want law? And that that's the real question that it closes with. Obviously, the answer is we want spirit. We want Spirit led standards, filled with love filled with admonition from others who are filled with a spirit. That's the kind of love that will change things. Law, external reformation. Temporary, it is not going to last.

Jeremy Boggs:                   Yeah. Well, it's been a good episode. We know we beat this love drum for a little bit, but it was a really good conversation. I enjoyed it.

Zach Taylor:                       We're going to go hug it out. (laughs)

Jeremy Boggs:                   Yup, we’re going to go hug it out after this episode (laughs), but I can't wait to the next one because Paul tells us how to love our neighbors as ourselves and how to not bite and consume in these next few verses by being spirit filled and we'll talk about in the next episode of Cherishing Scripture Podcast. You can find all of our stuff on all these platforms, YouTube, there's Apple, Google, I usually list those in our descriptions visit our church website, got out all Galatians has been covered so far on our Wednesday night services, you can see those there. And then email us you know; we would love to help or love to hear from you. So, don't be afraid to email us and thank you guys for joining us again on Cherishing Scripture Podcast.